European Published Patent Application No. 1 762 828 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,573,581, each of which is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety by reference thereto, describe an optical position-measuring device, which includes a measuring standard joined to one of two objects, as well as at least one scanning system for scanning the measuring standard, the scanning system being joined to the other of the two objects. The scanning system is arranged such that it permits simultaneous determination of position along a first lateral shift direction and along a vertical shift direction of the objects. In order to determine position in the first lateral and vertical shift direction, on the part of the scanning system, first and second scanning beam paths are formed, in which in each case from two non-mirror-symmetric, interfering partial beams of rays, a group of phase-shifted signals is able to be generated at the output end.
The beam from the light source is supplied to the scanning system via a first light guide. This makes it possible to locate the light source away from the measuring location. In addition, the interfering partial beams of rays provided by the scanning system are supplied to the detector system via a second light guide, to in this manner minimize disturbances of the detector system.